Back pg. March 08/08
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
HEAVY winds accompanied by rains hit parts of Accra and other areas of the country last Thursday night leaving in its wake the destruction of valuable properties.
The worst affected areas are Dome, Kwabenya, Awoshie, Kwashieman and Darkuman.
Also affected was Borkorborkor, a suburb of Ablekuma in the Ga West District, where many people were rendered homeless.
Roofs of houses and shops belonging to traders, along the main Dome-St. John’s road, running into several hundreds of Ghana cedis were destroyed by the heavy winds.
The wind also destroyed several sign boards including one belonging to the newly opened Dome branch of the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), as well as canopies of shops, and also uprooted trees.
One of the hardest hit was the Dome Pillar Two taxi rank located near the Dome Railway Crossing, where the wind destroyed a makeshift parking lot for taxis.
The parking lot which also served as a shelter for commuters and drivers alike, had been built close to a waterway and the wind blew off the structure into the water, living the pillars that supported it while an MTN branded container which was also situated nearby was also blown into the water.
As early as 6.30 am, the drivers, not deterred by the destruction, were working while some tried to put the place in order by lifting the container and the roofs from the water way.
The roofings of some parts of the Dome market was also not spared by the winds as they were blown off.
Most of the people whose properties got destroyed were seen busily rebuilding them while others also counted their losses as they could not do anything about them.
At the St. John’s junction, food stuff sellers who had ignored several warnings to vacate the area to make way for contractors working on the Achimota-Ofankor road, were also not left out as water collected in the trenches created by the construction taking place and left them with no other option but to move far away from the main road.
At Borkorborkor, many single and self-contained houses had their roofs ripped off while others collapsed completely, reports Boniface Ablekpe
The fence walls of some houses also collapsed.
Most of the victims were asleep when the disaster struck, forcing them to seek refuge in nearby uncompleted buildings.
The children of one of the victims went missing until the morning when they were found.
According to Mr Joe Apeh, the victim, when the roof of their single roomed house was ripped off he and his wife and the children escaped, in search of a place to lay their heads.
Apparently in view of the darkness the children sought refuge with neighbours without the notice of their parents until they went home on Friday morning.
At the time of going to press the affected victims were busily preparing temporary places of abode.
The Meteorological Services Department has described the rainstorm that hit the northern parts of Accra and other areas of the country as a normal phenomenon, especially as the country moves away from the dry season, reports Stephen Sah
Mr Amos Narh, a Senior Meteorologist, told the Daily Graphic that the occurrence was bound to happen in this transitional period of the year.
He said the rains also affected areas in the Eastern, Central and Western regions and Abetifi, for instance, recorded 46.1 mm, Asamankese 34.2 mm and Assin Fosu in the Central Region, 37.2 mm, while Axim in the Western Region recorded the highest rainfall figure of 55.7 mm.
According to him, what happened was a local development, particularly over the high grounds and forest regions and it was an indication that the country was about to enter the rainy season.
Mr Narh said that hilly areas should also expect the occurrence in the evenings and late afternoons.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Social welfare looks for parents of missing children
Pg 11 (w'mens pg). Sat. March 08/08
Story & Pix by Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Shelter for Abused Children under the Department of Social Welfare at Osu is confronted with an additional task of catering for 20 missing children who have been found and sent to the institution.
The operators of the facility said this had compounded their problem since they needed additional resources to cater for the children in addition to their mandated role of catering for abused and children awaiting prosecution.
The shelter with its meagre resources is presently saddled with the medical and feeding bills of the children because their parents cannot be found.
Officials of the institution said most of the children were trafficked to the city to serve as domestic helps and that due to unfavourable conditions they run away and found their way to the police station where they were sent to the shelter.
They are Ebo Ibrahim, 7, Stephen Kwame, 8, Fuseina, 8, Kwame Ansah 12, Comfort Atsupi, 9, Rose Adatsu, 10, Ransford Badowu, 12, Bernard Harrison, 11, Elisabeth Mensah, 15 and Kwame Kwakye, 14.
The rest are Junior Adatsi, 9, Latifa Abraman, Obaayaa Ayitey, Precious Amanful, and Alberta Mann, all aged 11, Deborah Akuabua and Bernice Neku, aged 12 years each Faustina Otoo, 9 and Yaw Thomas and Rebecca Kuwornu, aged 13 years each.
Most of the children, according to the managers of the shelter, give false names as they are afraid they would be discovered and sent back to their parents or guardians while others cannot just give their surnames, where they come from or their age. The ages of those children were guessed by the managers based on their physical appearance.
Although the authorities anticipated that they would be able to trace the relatives of the children after a brief period, some have stayed at the place for about a year while others have been there for months.
The institution which is already burdened with water and transportation problems now has to stretch its budget to feed the children three times daily, give them medical care as well as clothing.
Although several policies and protocols adopted by the government are aimed at safeguarding the rights of the child such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Human Trafficking Act, some children in the country still continue to be in servitude with many more living under deplorable conditions.
All the 20 children at the shelter are not in school as required by the government’s Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education Programme.
When the International Desk Officer of the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC), Mrs Marilyn Amponsah Annan, was contacted on the plight of the children, she said it was the responsibility of the Department of Social Welfare to cater for such children.
She, however, said that because the department did not have enough centres, the missing children had to be placed in the shelter as a temporary measure.
Mrs Annan said it was however unfortunate that some of the children had been there for as long as a year, a situation which was not anticipated.
• A group picture of the 20 missing children at the Shelter for Abused girls at Osu.
Story & Pix by Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Shelter for Abused Children under the Department of Social Welfare at Osu is confronted with an additional task of catering for 20 missing children who have been found and sent to the institution.
The operators of the facility said this had compounded their problem since they needed additional resources to cater for the children in addition to their mandated role of catering for abused and children awaiting prosecution.
The shelter with its meagre resources is presently saddled with the medical and feeding bills of the children because their parents cannot be found.
Officials of the institution said most of the children were trafficked to the city to serve as domestic helps and that due to unfavourable conditions they run away and found their way to the police station where they were sent to the shelter.
They are Ebo Ibrahim, 7, Stephen Kwame, 8, Fuseina, 8, Kwame Ansah 12, Comfort Atsupi, 9, Rose Adatsu, 10, Ransford Badowu, 12, Bernard Harrison, 11, Elisabeth Mensah, 15 and Kwame Kwakye, 14.
The rest are Junior Adatsi, 9, Latifa Abraman, Obaayaa Ayitey, Precious Amanful, and Alberta Mann, all aged 11, Deborah Akuabua and Bernice Neku, aged 12 years each Faustina Otoo, 9 and Yaw Thomas and Rebecca Kuwornu, aged 13 years each.
Most of the children, according to the managers of the shelter, give false names as they are afraid they would be discovered and sent back to their parents or guardians while others cannot just give their surnames, where they come from or their age. The ages of those children were guessed by the managers based on their physical appearance.
Although the authorities anticipated that they would be able to trace the relatives of the children after a brief period, some have stayed at the place for about a year while others have been there for months.
The institution which is already burdened with water and transportation problems now has to stretch its budget to feed the children three times daily, give them medical care as well as clothing.
Although several policies and protocols adopted by the government are aimed at safeguarding the rights of the child such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Human Trafficking Act, some children in the country still continue to be in servitude with many more living under deplorable conditions.
All the 20 children at the shelter are not in school as required by the government’s Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education Programme.
When the International Desk Officer of the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs (MOWAC), Mrs Marilyn Amponsah Annan, was contacted on the plight of the children, she said it was the responsibility of the Department of Social Welfare to cater for such children.
She, however, said that because the department did not have enough centres, the missing children had to be placed in the shelter as a temporary measure.
Mrs Annan said it was however unfortunate that some of the children had been there for as long as a year, a situation which was not anticipated.
• A group picture of the 20 missing children at the Shelter for Abused girls at Osu.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The Woman who designed Ghana's national flag
Pg 11. March 06/08
BY Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
A veteran Ghanaian artist, Mrs Theodosia Salome Okoh (nee Asihene), has stated that the current calls on aspirants of the various political parties contesting in the 2008 general election to consider choosing women as their running mates must be critically analysed.
She said apart from looking at the educational background of the names that are coming up, there was also the need to consider their zeal, enthusiasm and hard work.
Expressing these sentiments in an interview with the Daily Graphic as part of Ghana’s 51st Anniversary, Mrs Okoh, 85, who designed Ghana’s national flag, said women in the 1950s contributed their part by ensuring that they made their presence felt through hard work.
She mentioned one of such women as Justice Annie Jiaggie, the first female judge and founder of the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) in Ghana.
Recounting the contributions made by some women in the country’s independence struggle, Mrs Okoh said a number of women who were mainly working for the Convention People’s Party (CPP), one of the leading political parties at that time, dedicated all their time and efforts to the party’s cause and ensured that they achieved success in whatever they did.
She said although women were playing active roles in politics today, they were not making the needed impact since they work towards attaining different goals for their political parties.
To her, although most women of today were educated, they were not able to develop their full potential as their roles were greatly influenced by their male counterparts.
She said Dr Nkrumah initiated programmes that contributed to the liberation of women and today, women were appointed or elected to important governmental positions, the Judiciary and the security services.
Mrs Okoh said although there were now more qualified women for important positions in government and public services than in the past, there was the need to identify those who were ready to work, especially in the political arena.
She said just after independence, women who worked in political circles were more dedicated to their work than looking for financial benefits.
Inspired by the words in the patriotic song “Yen Ara Ye Asase Ne”, composed by the late Dr Ephraim Amu ”, she said she designed the Ghana flag, which had the colours red, gold and green with a black star in the middle of the gold.
With many medals to her credit for her role in Ghana’s independence struggle and sports, Mrs Okoh is also a good hockey player and is described as the “Joan of Arc” of Ghana hockey for her immense contribution to the development of the game.
As part of recognition for her services to the nation, in 1992 Mrs Okoh received the Entertainment Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana (ECRAG) Mahogany Award in 1996 for designing the national flag.
She also received a Grand Medal from the state during the 40th Independence Day celebration of the country in 1997 and received the Art Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana (ACRAG) award for designing the national flag. In 2004 she received an award from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for her role in building a national hockey pitch.
Her fraternity with hockey started when she was at Achimota School where she learnt and played the game for three years. Luck shone on her when Dr Kwame Nkrumah in a bid to boost the game, designated a minister for it and made her an assistant to the minister.
She became the chairman of the national hockey team in 1961 and established the national hockey pitch in 1964. This has now been named after her and presently, she is the patron of the Sports Writers Association.
The then Chairman of Ghana Sports, the Late Ohene Djan, after watching a splendid performance of the national hockey team against Nigeria after she had revived it, named her the “Joan of Ark” of hockey.
According to records, she was the first woman to have acted as the coach of a team all- male hockey players to the world hockey game, where the team represented Africa at Malaysia in 1975 and although they did not win, they received a medal for fair game and her all-Black team was also the first to play against an all-White team in a friendly match at Spain to precede the world cup.
She was the Director of Ghana’s Junior Red Cross and a fund-raiser for the YWCA.
The first woman to become the president of the National Sports Association, Mrs Okoh, who is a specialist teacher, was also the first certified female teacher to teach in and around Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region. She was, therefore, referred to as “Teacher Awura” (lady teacher).
Born to a former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Mr Emmanuel Victor Asihene, and Mrs Dora Asihene, Mrs Okoh a Presbyterian from Anum but born at Akyem Wenchi. She had her elementary education at Agogo and after Standard Four, she applied for an advertised specialised teachers course (Art work) at Achimota where she learnt her profession for three years.
Mrs Okoh got married in 1949 to her late husband, Mr Enoch Okoh, who was the Head of the Civil Service, and gave birth to her three children, Ernest, Stanley, and Theodosia.
BY Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
A veteran Ghanaian artist, Mrs Theodosia Salome Okoh (nee Asihene), has stated that the current calls on aspirants of the various political parties contesting in the 2008 general election to consider choosing women as their running mates must be critically analysed.
She said apart from looking at the educational background of the names that are coming up, there was also the need to consider their zeal, enthusiasm and hard work.
Expressing these sentiments in an interview with the Daily Graphic as part of Ghana’s 51st Anniversary, Mrs Okoh, 85, who designed Ghana’s national flag, said women in the 1950s contributed their part by ensuring that they made their presence felt through hard work.
She mentioned one of such women as Justice Annie Jiaggie, the first female judge and founder of the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) in Ghana.
Recounting the contributions made by some women in the country’s independence struggle, Mrs Okoh said a number of women who were mainly working for the Convention People’s Party (CPP), one of the leading political parties at that time, dedicated all their time and efforts to the party’s cause and ensured that they achieved success in whatever they did.
She said although women were playing active roles in politics today, they were not making the needed impact since they work towards attaining different goals for their political parties.
To her, although most women of today were educated, they were not able to develop their full potential as their roles were greatly influenced by their male counterparts.
She said Dr Nkrumah initiated programmes that contributed to the liberation of women and today, women were appointed or elected to important governmental positions, the Judiciary and the security services.
Mrs Okoh said although there were now more qualified women for important positions in government and public services than in the past, there was the need to identify those who were ready to work, especially in the political arena.
She said just after independence, women who worked in political circles were more dedicated to their work than looking for financial benefits.
Inspired by the words in the patriotic song “Yen Ara Ye Asase Ne”, composed by the late Dr Ephraim Amu ”, she said she designed the Ghana flag, which had the colours red, gold and green with a black star in the middle of the gold.
With many medals to her credit for her role in Ghana’s independence struggle and sports, Mrs Okoh is also a good hockey player and is described as the “Joan of Arc” of Ghana hockey for her immense contribution to the development of the game.
As part of recognition for her services to the nation, in 1992 Mrs Okoh received the Entertainment Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana (ECRAG) Mahogany Award in 1996 for designing the national flag.
She also received a Grand Medal from the state during the 40th Independence Day celebration of the country in 1997 and received the Art Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana (ACRAG) award for designing the national flag. In 2004 she received an award from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for her role in building a national hockey pitch.
Her fraternity with hockey started when she was at Achimota School where she learnt and played the game for three years. Luck shone on her when Dr Kwame Nkrumah in a bid to boost the game, designated a minister for it and made her an assistant to the minister.
She became the chairman of the national hockey team in 1961 and established the national hockey pitch in 1964. This has now been named after her and presently, she is the patron of the Sports Writers Association.
The then Chairman of Ghana Sports, the Late Ohene Djan, after watching a splendid performance of the national hockey team against Nigeria after she had revived it, named her the “Joan of Ark” of hockey.
According to records, she was the first woman to have acted as the coach of a team all- male hockey players to the world hockey game, where the team represented Africa at Malaysia in 1975 and although they did not win, they received a medal for fair game and her all-Black team was also the first to play against an all-White team in a friendly match at Spain to precede the world cup.
She was the Director of Ghana’s Junior Red Cross and a fund-raiser for the YWCA.
The first woman to become the president of the National Sports Association, Mrs Okoh, who is a specialist teacher, was also the first certified female teacher to teach in and around Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region. She was, therefore, referred to as “Teacher Awura” (lady teacher).
Born to a former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Mr Emmanuel Victor Asihene, and Mrs Dora Asihene, Mrs Okoh a Presbyterian from Anum but born at Akyem Wenchi. She had her elementary education at Agogo and after Standard Four, she applied for an advertised specialised teachers course (Art work) at Achimota where she learnt her profession for three years.
Mrs Okoh got married in 1949 to her late husband, Mr Enoch Okoh, who was the Head of the Civil Service, and gave birth to her three children, Ernest, Stanley, and Theodosia.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Health sector has seen many reforms
Pg. 43. Wed. March 05/08
Compiled by Lucy Adoma Yeboah and Rebecca Quaicoe Duho.
THE health sector, which is one of the critical sectors of the Ghanaian economy, has over the past 50 years played its role through the introduction of many policies and reforms to provide health care to Ghanaians.
These policies and reforms have been assigned to a governmental institution, the Ministry of Health (MoH), with the responsibility to see to their implementation so as to improve the health status of all people living in Ghana to enable them to contribute to the country’s development.
Although the MoH has seen changes in its policies over the years, its main focus of improving the health status of the Ghanaian population through the development and promotion of proactive policies for good health and longevity, the provision of universal access to basic health service, and provision of quality health services which are affordable and accessible, have remained the same.
The MoH has over the years been directly responsible for the provision of public health services delivery in the country until the creation of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the late 1990s.
Since Ghana’s independence 51 years ago, various governments have been challenged with the task of improving the country’s health care system.
As part of the country’s Golden Jubilee Celebration last year, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, the former Director-General of Ghana’s health services, admitted that the country had achieved “mixed success” in its bid to ensure health for all Ghanaians. In a report carried by the Voice of America (VOA), Professor Akosa stated that the colonial legacy in the health sector was pretty bad; hospitals had been built for the Europeans, and Ghanaians had virtually nothing to contend with — few medical units to deal with some public health problems, but that was about all.
After independence in 1957, the situation improved, Akosa said. “The first government set out to develop health infrastructure; the government made a bold initiative of starting a medical school in Ghana and starting with employing Ghanaians.”
Prof Akosa added that Ghana’s first medical school became “one of the best” of such schools in the world. “Graduates from the medical school were everywhere,” he said. But, he explained, Ghana receded into terms of quality health care when subsequent governments failed to invest in the system.
“We have a policy that every district should have a hospital … but this is difficult to accomplish because building a hospital is a lot of money. And, therefore, we are heavily reliant on support from donors … So what I will say is that the amount of investment in health certainly has not been the best. And I think this would be applicable to all regimes. Some people have invested more in health; others have not,” he revealed.
As a policy, Ghana operated a cost-recovery health delivery system known infamously as the ‘cash-and-carry’ system since 1985, whereby patients were required to pay up-front for health services at government clinics and hospitals. That, however, pushed health care far beyond the reach of the ordinary Ghanaian until the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2003.
Health Sector Reforms
Ghana’s health sector has had many reforms. The most recent reform that has been in process since the early 1990s has been finally documented in what is popularly known as “Medium Term Health Strategy, 1996-2000”. It aims at improving access to health services, quality of care and efficiency, strengthening links with other sectors such as the Ministries of Agriculture and Education which also have health components in their activities or impact on the health of people (Ministry of Health, 1996). Its main achievement or focus has been the introduction of user fees.
The introduction of user fees in Ghana has also been a component of a range of strategies that are part of an international health reform agenda. They are linked to a broad set of public sector reform ideas and initiatives collectively known as the ‘new public management’ (NPM).
The NPM in the health sector has other policies apart from the user fees — decentralisation of the health sector with changes in organisational management and culture, and autonomous hospital boards and deregulation, and regulation of the private sector.
The main objectives of these policies are achievement of sustainable financing of health services, quality improvement, and equity with respect to access.
Institution of User Fees and Exemption of the Poor
Fees for health services in public facilities, first introduced in 1971, were very low and aimed at reducing unnecessary use of services rather than to generate revenue.
The fees were raised slightly in July 1983 and increased substantially in July 1985 when a new hospital act was passed under the military regime of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), aimed at recovering at least 15 per cent of operational costs.
Initially, the Act allowed health centres and clinics to retain only 25 per cent of the revenue from fees collected while hospitals were allowed to retain 50 per cent. In 1990, this provision was amended and some public health institutions were selected for a pilot programme and allowed to keep all revenue generated from user fees.
In 1992, the new fees were implemented nation-wide as the government, influenced by multilateral donors, abandoned a phased implementation procedure started in 1990. Since then, a decentralised system of charging fees has been operating in the public health facilities and all revenue has been retained for operational or non-salary budget. Budget surpluses that are not invested in improving the quality of care are sent to the Ministry of Health (MoH).
A revolving fund for drugs was initiated in 1992 by which all health institutions were to recover the full cost of drugs and keep this revenue to purchase drugs only. An overhead cost of 10-15 per cent is added and the full cost was revised in line with inflation.
The public health facilities also charged other fees for the following: Out Patient Department (OPD) cards and initial registration, consultation, admissions, gloves gauze, needles and syringes. Informal fees with various shades of legality and unauthorised fees were also collected from users.
Implementation of Ghana’s Health User Fee Policy and the Exemption of the Poor.
The 1992 law, however, has a clause providing for exemption for the poor and treatment of emergencies whether patients are in a position to pay immediately or not. It does not indicate the criteria by which the poor can be identified though — whether by income, geographical area, occupation, etc.
Health workers were just instructed to use their discretion to grant exemption to anyone who said he/she could not afford fees. They later applied for refund from government, the exemptions that they granted.
The implementation of the new user fee was described by some as successful with respect to revenue generation despite some registered abuses. Revenue raising dominated other concerns and was at the expense of health care needs, to the extent that the exemption clause had been either ignored or just labelled as difficult to implement, even in clear-cut cases where exemption could be granted.
The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)
In March 2004, President John Agyekum Kufuor launched a National Insurance Health Scheme designed to offer affordable medical care, especially to the poor and vulnerable among Ghana’s 19 million people.
Under the scheme, adult Ghanaians are paying a yearly minimum subscription of GH¢7.20. In addition to free services to contributors to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and SSNIT pensioners, the government is catering for health treatment of the aged, the poor as well as children of parents who both subscribe to the scheme.
Currently, about 50 per cent of Ghanaians have registered under the scheme, which covers all districts in the country under District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes (DMHISs).
New Health Policy.
Currently, the health sector has initiated a new health policy that emphasises health promotion and prevention of ill-health in the promotion of healthy lifestyles, behavioural changes and healthy environment.
Dubbed, “Regenerative Health and Nutrition Programme”, the health sector is educating Ghanaians on the need to reduce their salt, sugar, fat and alcohol intake and rather drink enough water, consume vegetables and fruits, have physical exercises and enough rest to live healthily. The programme has the theme — “Renew Your Strength-Prevent Diseases”.
With this and other policies previously introduced, the health sector believes the country would be relieved of most of its health problems such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, cholera, measles, typhoid, tuberculosis, chicken pox, yellow fever, trachoma, and river blindness.
Others are guinea worm, various kinds of dysentery, river blindness or onchocerciasis, pneumonia, dehydration, venereal diseases, poliomyelitis and malnutrition, among others.
Compiled by Lucy Adoma Yeboah and Rebecca Quaicoe Duho.
THE health sector, which is one of the critical sectors of the Ghanaian economy, has over the past 50 years played its role through the introduction of many policies and reforms to provide health care to Ghanaians.
These policies and reforms have been assigned to a governmental institution, the Ministry of Health (MoH), with the responsibility to see to their implementation so as to improve the health status of all people living in Ghana to enable them to contribute to the country’s development.
Although the MoH has seen changes in its policies over the years, its main focus of improving the health status of the Ghanaian population through the development and promotion of proactive policies for good health and longevity, the provision of universal access to basic health service, and provision of quality health services which are affordable and accessible, have remained the same.
The MoH has over the years been directly responsible for the provision of public health services delivery in the country until the creation of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the late 1990s.
Since Ghana’s independence 51 years ago, various governments have been challenged with the task of improving the country’s health care system.
As part of the country’s Golden Jubilee Celebration last year, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, the former Director-General of Ghana’s health services, admitted that the country had achieved “mixed success” in its bid to ensure health for all Ghanaians. In a report carried by the Voice of America (VOA), Professor Akosa stated that the colonial legacy in the health sector was pretty bad; hospitals had been built for the Europeans, and Ghanaians had virtually nothing to contend with — few medical units to deal with some public health problems, but that was about all.
After independence in 1957, the situation improved, Akosa said. “The first government set out to develop health infrastructure; the government made a bold initiative of starting a medical school in Ghana and starting with employing Ghanaians.”
Prof Akosa added that Ghana’s first medical school became “one of the best” of such schools in the world. “Graduates from the medical school were everywhere,” he said. But, he explained, Ghana receded into terms of quality health care when subsequent governments failed to invest in the system.
“We have a policy that every district should have a hospital … but this is difficult to accomplish because building a hospital is a lot of money. And, therefore, we are heavily reliant on support from donors … So what I will say is that the amount of investment in health certainly has not been the best. And I think this would be applicable to all regimes. Some people have invested more in health; others have not,” he revealed.
As a policy, Ghana operated a cost-recovery health delivery system known infamously as the ‘cash-and-carry’ system since 1985, whereby patients were required to pay up-front for health services at government clinics and hospitals. That, however, pushed health care far beyond the reach of the ordinary Ghanaian until the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2003.
Health Sector Reforms
Ghana’s health sector has had many reforms. The most recent reform that has been in process since the early 1990s has been finally documented in what is popularly known as “Medium Term Health Strategy, 1996-2000”. It aims at improving access to health services, quality of care and efficiency, strengthening links with other sectors such as the Ministries of Agriculture and Education which also have health components in their activities or impact on the health of people (Ministry of Health, 1996). Its main achievement or focus has been the introduction of user fees.
The introduction of user fees in Ghana has also been a component of a range of strategies that are part of an international health reform agenda. They are linked to a broad set of public sector reform ideas and initiatives collectively known as the ‘new public management’ (NPM).
The NPM in the health sector has other policies apart from the user fees — decentralisation of the health sector with changes in organisational management and culture, and autonomous hospital boards and deregulation, and regulation of the private sector.
The main objectives of these policies are achievement of sustainable financing of health services, quality improvement, and equity with respect to access.
Institution of User Fees and Exemption of the Poor
Fees for health services in public facilities, first introduced in 1971, were very low and aimed at reducing unnecessary use of services rather than to generate revenue.
The fees were raised slightly in July 1983 and increased substantially in July 1985 when a new hospital act was passed under the military regime of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), aimed at recovering at least 15 per cent of operational costs.
Initially, the Act allowed health centres and clinics to retain only 25 per cent of the revenue from fees collected while hospitals were allowed to retain 50 per cent. In 1990, this provision was amended and some public health institutions were selected for a pilot programme and allowed to keep all revenue generated from user fees.
In 1992, the new fees were implemented nation-wide as the government, influenced by multilateral donors, abandoned a phased implementation procedure started in 1990. Since then, a decentralised system of charging fees has been operating in the public health facilities and all revenue has been retained for operational or non-salary budget. Budget surpluses that are not invested in improving the quality of care are sent to the Ministry of Health (MoH).
A revolving fund for drugs was initiated in 1992 by which all health institutions were to recover the full cost of drugs and keep this revenue to purchase drugs only. An overhead cost of 10-15 per cent is added and the full cost was revised in line with inflation.
The public health facilities also charged other fees for the following: Out Patient Department (OPD) cards and initial registration, consultation, admissions, gloves gauze, needles and syringes. Informal fees with various shades of legality and unauthorised fees were also collected from users.
Implementation of Ghana’s Health User Fee Policy and the Exemption of the Poor.
The 1992 law, however, has a clause providing for exemption for the poor and treatment of emergencies whether patients are in a position to pay immediately or not. It does not indicate the criteria by which the poor can be identified though — whether by income, geographical area, occupation, etc.
Health workers were just instructed to use their discretion to grant exemption to anyone who said he/she could not afford fees. They later applied for refund from government, the exemptions that they granted.
The implementation of the new user fee was described by some as successful with respect to revenue generation despite some registered abuses. Revenue raising dominated other concerns and was at the expense of health care needs, to the extent that the exemption clause had been either ignored or just labelled as difficult to implement, even in clear-cut cases where exemption could be granted.
The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)
In March 2004, President John Agyekum Kufuor launched a National Insurance Health Scheme designed to offer affordable medical care, especially to the poor and vulnerable among Ghana’s 19 million people.
Under the scheme, adult Ghanaians are paying a yearly minimum subscription of GH¢7.20. In addition to free services to contributors to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and SSNIT pensioners, the government is catering for health treatment of the aged, the poor as well as children of parents who both subscribe to the scheme.
Currently, about 50 per cent of Ghanaians have registered under the scheme, which covers all districts in the country under District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes (DMHISs).
New Health Policy.
Currently, the health sector has initiated a new health policy that emphasises health promotion and prevention of ill-health in the promotion of healthy lifestyles, behavioural changes and healthy environment.
Dubbed, “Regenerative Health and Nutrition Programme”, the health sector is educating Ghanaians on the need to reduce their salt, sugar, fat and alcohol intake and rather drink enough water, consume vegetables and fruits, have physical exercises and enough rest to live healthily. The programme has the theme — “Renew Your Strength-Prevent Diseases”.
With this and other policies previously introduced, the health sector believes the country would be relieved of most of its health problems such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, cholera, measles, typhoid, tuberculosis, chicken pox, yellow fever, trachoma, and river blindness.
Others are guinea worm, various kinds of dysentery, river blindness or onchocerciasis, pneumonia, dehydration, venereal diseases, poliomyelitis and malnutrition, among others.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Soldier Bar owners demolish parts of structure
pg 24. Mon. March 03/08
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Parliamentary Caucus on Population says it will not hesitate to close down or demolish the Soldier Bar, a brothel at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.
The Chairman of the Caucus, Madam Teresa Tagoe, said this when members visited the brothel to have a first hand view on how the place was operated and later recommend actions that needed to be taken.
The members expressed their shock and disgust at the horrible conditions under which people, including children practise prostitution, when they visited the place.
The brothel was in the news in December last year after more than 150 suspected prostitutes including children were rounded up by the police who raided the area.
The parliamentarians were accompanied by some members of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, the police, CID, Social Welfare and the Department of Children.
The brothel, situated behind the Airport-Circle taxi rank, has a drinking bar at its frontage with over 50 cubicles behind has been operational for decades where both the young and old patronised it.
The cubicles which are about 4 feet x 4 feet square has only a make-shift bed and mattress in them with the doors, which are often locked when occupied, serving as the only ventilation.
It also has four smaller cubicles serving as bath rooms and toilets which are also used by the prostitutes.
The area where the brothel is situated stinks and poses a health hazard to its occupants as it is near a big gutter that runs behind it.
Although the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has written a “stop work” notice on one of the structures, business was still booming as the place was still operational.
Although no body from the brothel was around when members of the caucus visited the place, some elderly couples suspected to be customers were seen leaving one of the rooms to avoid a confrontation.
Three young men despite the heat at the place due to its low ceiling, were seen fast asleep in one of the rooms.
One of them when confronted said they did not have money to patronise hotels and therefore they resulted to such cheap places.
The Chairman of the Caucus, Madam Teresa Amerley Tagoe, in an interview said the caucus was going to meet on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, to take a final decision which would be sent to parliament for action to be taken on the place.
She said the place was dehumanising and did not understand why people would want to have pleasure in such places.
Madam Tagoe said it was the duty of the members to protect the interest of all people including children and therefore would not hesitate to recommend its demolishing.
She was of the view that raiding the place was not going to solve the problem but rather there was the need for concrete steps to be taken.
The Greater Accra Regional Co-ordinator of the Department of Children, Mr Peter Akyea who was with the MPs in an interview said 14 of the teenage prostitutes who were detained during the raid in December, three of whom after medical checks were found to be pregnant with four others already with babies, have been rehabilitated and reintegrated into vocational training centres in their various communities.
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Parliamentary Caucus on Population says it will not hesitate to close down or demolish the Soldier Bar, a brothel at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.
The Chairman of the Caucus, Madam Teresa Tagoe, said this when members visited the brothel to have a first hand view on how the place was operated and later recommend actions that needed to be taken.
The members expressed their shock and disgust at the horrible conditions under which people, including children practise prostitution, when they visited the place.
The brothel was in the news in December last year after more than 150 suspected prostitutes including children were rounded up by the police who raided the area.
The parliamentarians were accompanied by some members of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs, the police, CID, Social Welfare and the Department of Children.
The brothel, situated behind the Airport-Circle taxi rank, has a drinking bar at its frontage with over 50 cubicles behind has been operational for decades where both the young and old patronised it.
The cubicles which are about 4 feet x 4 feet square has only a make-shift bed and mattress in them with the doors, which are often locked when occupied, serving as the only ventilation.
It also has four smaller cubicles serving as bath rooms and toilets which are also used by the prostitutes.
The area where the brothel is situated stinks and poses a health hazard to its occupants as it is near a big gutter that runs behind it.
Although the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has written a “stop work” notice on one of the structures, business was still booming as the place was still operational.
Although no body from the brothel was around when members of the caucus visited the place, some elderly couples suspected to be customers were seen leaving one of the rooms to avoid a confrontation.
Three young men despite the heat at the place due to its low ceiling, were seen fast asleep in one of the rooms.
One of them when confronted said they did not have money to patronise hotels and therefore they resulted to such cheap places.
The Chairman of the Caucus, Madam Teresa Amerley Tagoe, in an interview said the caucus was going to meet on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, to take a final decision which would be sent to parliament for action to be taken on the place.
She said the place was dehumanising and did not understand why people would want to have pleasure in such places.
Madam Tagoe said it was the duty of the members to protect the interest of all people including children and therefore would not hesitate to recommend its demolishing.
She was of the view that raiding the place was not going to solve the problem but rather there was the need for concrete steps to be taken.
The Greater Accra Regional Co-ordinator of the Department of Children, Mr Peter Akyea who was with the MPs in an interview said 14 of the teenage prostitutes who were detained during the raid in December, three of whom after medical checks were found to be pregnant with four others already with babies, have been rehabilitated and reintegrated into vocational training centres in their various communities.
MPs briefed on EPA
Pg 44. Mon. March 03/08
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Mr Joseph B. Danquah Adu, has called on civil society groups to partner the government to find ways of making the interim Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries beneficial to Ghana.
According to him, the country stood to gain more from the EPA, since it sought to promote the establishment of multi-national companies.
Mr Danquah Adu, who said this at a civil society briefing to members of the Trade, Finance and Agriculture committees of Parliament in Accra on Wednesday on the consequences of the EPAs, said the fear of civil societies should not be the European Union markets penetrating the Ghanaian market but rather China, which he said was bringing in goods that were putting small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs out of job.
The EPA replaces the trade provisions under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement which expired on December 31, 2007, and aims at creating a free trade area (FTA) between the European Union and ACP countries as a response to continuing criticism that the non-reciprocal and discriminating preferential trade agreements offered by the EU were incompatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
Mr Danquah Adu, who reiterated an earlier stand that Ghana had not signed into the agreement but had rather initialled, also said the EU did not export into the country as China did but rather established multilateral companies that the country stood to gain, and therefore called on civil societies to see the good side of the EPAs.
He called on civil society groups not only to fish out for the negative aspect of the EPAs but also to propagate some of its benefits, saying that the agreement had a package that included provisions on trade, fisheries and economic development co-operation.
He said what was causing civil society unrest was the gradual liberalisation of 80 per cent of the country’s trade for imports from EU, which he said covered mainly capital, raw material and intermediate products over a period of 15 years, but, however, gave the assurance that the government would not do anything that would be inimical to the country.
Two representatives of civil society groups, Mr Ibrahim Akalbila, Co-ordinator of the Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition, and Mr Gyekye Tanoh of the Third World Network Africa, who briefed the MPs on the significance, concerns and how Ghana’s commitments threatened its democracy and development, called for a reversal of the interim agreement.
According to them, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the only two countries which had so far initialled the agreements, had completely undermined the regional negotiating positions of the sub-region.
According to them, the agreement would only serve Europe’s commercial and geo-economic interests, adding that it would not support Africa’s development and regional integration.
They, therefore, commended countries that had not initialled the agreement and further called on the parliamentarians not to ratify the agreement in Ghana.
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
THE Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Mr Joseph B. Danquah Adu, has called on civil society groups to partner the government to find ways of making the interim Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries beneficial to Ghana.
According to him, the country stood to gain more from the EPA, since it sought to promote the establishment of multi-national companies.
Mr Danquah Adu, who said this at a civil society briefing to members of the Trade, Finance and Agriculture committees of Parliament in Accra on Wednesday on the consequences of the EPAs, said the fear of civil societies should not be the European Union markets penetrating the Ghanaian market but rather China, which he said was bringing in goods that were putting small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs out of job.
The EPA replaces the trade provisions under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement which expired on December 31, 2007, and aims at creating a free trade area (FTA) between the European Union and ACP countries as a response to continuing criticism that the non-reciprocal and discriminating preferential trade agreements offered by the EU were incompatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
Mr Danquah Adu, who reiterated an earlier stand that Ghana had not signed into the agreement but had rather initialled, also said the EU did not export into the country as China did but rather established multilateral companies that the country stood to gain, and therefore called on civil societies to see the good side of the EPAs.
He called on civil society groups not only to fish out for the negative aspect of the EPAs but also to propagate some of its benefits, saying that the agreement had a package that included provisions on trade, fisheries and economic development co-operation.
He said what was causing civil society unrest was the gradual liberalisation of 80 per cent of the country’s trade for imports from EU, which he said covered mainly capital, raw material and intermediate products over a period of 15 years, but, however, gave the assurance that the government would not do anything that would be inimical to the country.
Two representatives of civil society groups, Mr Ibrahim Akalbila, Co-ordinator of the Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition, and Mr Gyekye Tanoh of the Third World Network Africa, who briefed the MPs on the significance, concerns and how Ghana’s commitments threatened its democracy and development, called for a reversal of the interim agreement.
According to them, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the only two countries which had so far initialled the agreements, had completely undermined the regional negotiating positions of the sub-region.
According to them, the agreement would only serve Europe’s commercial and geo-economic interests, adding that it would not support Africa’s development and regional integration.
They, therefore, commended countries that had not initialled the agreement and further called on the parliamentarians not to ratify the agreement in Ghana.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
‘Street food vendors’ attend workshop
Pg. 11. Sat. March 1/08
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
A number of people who find themselves outside the home during the day due to their work schedules, have resorted to buying and eating food from ‘street food vendors’ especially, during lunch hours.
Such food comprise a wide variety of ‘ready-to-eat’ foods such as cooked rice, fried yam, banku, plantain, fufu, konkonte with soup, sauce and stew and beverages, which are sometimes prepared and sold in public places.
According to researchers, the patronage of food from street vendors is common in many countries where unemployment is high, salaries are low, work opportunities and social programmes are limited, and where urbanisation is prevalent.
By selling snacks, meals and refreshments at relatively low prices, street food vendors provide an essential service to workers, shoppers, travellers and many others.
What is worrying, however, is that most consumers are mostly interested in getting satisfied than to look for safety, quality and hygiene.
Health officials say the consumption of ‘street food’ can be one major cause of the spread of diseases in the country as most of these foods are not prepared under hygienic conditions and are contaminated during their preparation and improper handling by vendors.
The handling and processing of food is very vital as poor handling or processing can cause food poisoning, typhoid, cholera or diarrhoea.
To enlighten street food vendors on the essence of good hygiene, 30 food vendors, including two men from the Greater Accra Region have undergone a three-day training programme aimed at educating and upgrading their skills in food processing and handling.
The training, which was organised by the Women in Agriculture Directorate (WIAD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was also aimed at educating the vendors on the potential dangers that their actions and inaction can cause to consumers who patronise their services.
The vendors were taken through basic nutritional education, food handling and safety, food processing (fortification) and business and financial management.
The Deputy Minister of Agriculture in charge of Livestock and WIAD, Mrs Hannah Nyamekye, who opened the workshop, said the industry served as a major source of income and employment for entrepreneurs with low capital base especially, women and the youth.
She said “growing urbanisation and its associated changes to the way food is produced, marketed and consumed also presented a potential food-borne hazard as a single source can have widespread consequences”.
Mrs Nyamekye, therefore, called on the participants to ensure that they applied the knowledge they had acquired to ensure the safety of their consumers.
According to the minister, street food vendors whose food were affordable “are indeed our lifeline especially, at this time when many people are time constrained due to work-related issues and traffic congestion in the cities”.
She said the vendors were made to go through health checks and screened for infectious diseases, adding that “there is still the need to sensitise them on the proper handling of food both before and after it has been prepared to avoid contamination”.
The acting Director of WIAD, Ms Paulina Addy, called on the vendors not to only think of the profit that they could make but also take the health needs of their customers into consideration.
She called on them to consider the quality of ingredients and water used, the environment in which they operated, the handling, processing and safety of the food, as well as ensure that they washed their hands frequently.
Ms Addy reminded the participants that they served as an important link in preventing food-borne illnesses and, therefore, called on them to practise good personal hygiene.
The Officer in charge of the Value Added Tax Unit of WIAD, Rev Mrs Nyuieme Adiepena, said another batch of vendors would be trained later. She, therefore, called on the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the government for that matter to provide appropriate places for the vendors to operate.
She said the directorate, which started the training programme last year, had so far trained 60 market women on proper handling of foodstuffs and added that they would be monitoring their activities to ensure that they operated under approved conditions.
Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho
A number of people who find themselves outside the home during the day due to their work schedules, have resorted to buying and eating food from ‘street food vendors’ especially, during lunch hours.
Such food comprise a wide variety of ‘ready-to-eat’ foods such as cooked rice, fried yam, banku, plantain, fufu, konkonte with soup, sauce and stew and beverages, which are sometimes prepared and sold in public places.
According to researchers, the patronage of food from street vendors is common in many countries where unemployment is high, salaries are low, work opportunities and social programmes are limited, and where urbanisation is prevalent.
By selling snacks, meals and refreshments at relatively low prices, street food vendors provide an essential service to workers, shoppers, travellers and many others.
What is worrying, however, is that most consumers are mostly interested in getting satisfied than to look for safety, quality and hygiene.
Health officials say the consumption of ‘street food’ can be one major cause of the spread of diseases in the country as most of these foods are not prepared under hygienic conditions and are contaminated during their preparation and improper handling by vendors.
The handling and processing of food is very vital as poor handling or processing can cause food poisoning, typhoid, cholera or diarrhoea.
To enlighten street food vendors on the essence of good hygiene, 30 food vendors, including two men from the Greater Accra Region have undergone a three-day training programme aimed at educating and upgrading their skills in food processing and handling.
The training, which was organised by the Women in Agriculture Directorate (WIAD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was also aimed at educating the vendors on the potential dangers that their actions and inaction can cause to consumers who patronise their services.
The vendors were taken through basic nutritional education, food handling and safety, food processing (fortification) and business and financial management.
The Deputy Minister of Agriculture in charge of Livestock and WIAD, Mrs Hannah Nyamekye, who opened the workshop, said the industry served as a major source of income and employment for entrepreneurs with low capital base especially, women and the youth.
She said “growing urbanisation and its associated changes to the way food is produced, marketed and consumed also presented a potential food-borne hazard as a single source can have widespread consequences”.
Mrs Nyamekye, therefore, called on the participants to ensure that they applied the knowledge they had acquired to ensure the safety of their consumers.
According to the minister, street food vendors whose food were affordable “are indeed our lifeline especially, at this time when many people are time constrained due to work-related issues and traffic congestion in the cities”.
She said the vendors were made to go through health checks and screened for infectious diseases, adding that “there is still the need to sensitise them on the proper handling of food both before and after it has been prepared to avoid contamination”.
The acting Director of WIAD, Ms Paulina Addy, called on the vendors not to only think of the profit that they could make but also take the health needs of their customers into consideration.
She called on them to consider the quality of ingredients and water used, the environment in which they operated, the handling, processing and safety of the food, as well as ensure that they washed their hands frequently.
Ms Addy reminded the participants that they served as an important link in preventing food-borne illnesses and, therefore, called on them to practise good personal hygiene.
The Officer in charge of the Value Added Tax Unit of WIAD, Rev Mrs Nyuieme Adiepena, said another batch of vendors would be trained later. She, therefore, called on the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the government for that matter to provide appropriate places for the vendors to operate.
She said the directorate, which started the training programme last year, had so far trained 60 market women on proper handling of foodstuffs and added that they would be monitoring their activities to ensure that they operated under approved conditions.
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